


turn a little faster (the world will follow after)

by palomeheart



Series: pff bingo 2019 [4]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2010 Era (Phandom), 2012 Era (Phandom), 2013 Era (Phandom), 2019 Era (Phandom), Accidental Marriage, If You Squint - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Same-Sex Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-13 18:20:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21201197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palomeheart/pseuds/palomeheart
Summary: It takes Phil longer than perhaps it should to wrap his head around the idea of marriage. Not the concept itself—that’s pretty basic and hard to escape if you’ve ever seen a commercial or watched a movie or spoken to another person ever. One man, one woman, promising to love each other forever, build a family, have kids, make a life. That is how you construct your future, the world tells him over and over, implicitly and explicitly, surrounding him with examples of the right way to do it. It's a roadmap to success and happiness, pre-planned, waiting patiently for him to begin. One he can’t quite seem to find theyou are heremarker on.for bingo squares 'accidental marriage' 'coming out video' '2010' '2012' '2019' and 'glass closet'





	turn a little faster (the world will follow after)

**Author's Note:**

> In which I reflect upon and reprocess my feelings about gay marriage through its rocky path to legalization during my rocky path to queer adulthood, but as if I were Phil Lester.

It takes Phil longer than perhaps it should to wrap his head around the idea of marriage. Not the concept itself—that’s pretty basic and hard to escape if you’ve ever seen a commercial or watched a movie or spoken to another person ever. One man, one woman, promising to love each other forever, build a family, have kids, make a life. That is how you construct your future, the world tells him over and over, implicitly and explicitly, surrounding him with examples of the right way to do it. It's a roadmap to success and happiness, pre-planned, waiting patiently for him to begin. One he can’t quite seem to find the _you are here_ marker on.

What takes the time is trying to find his place in it all, in relation to the expectations and assumptions. By the time he finally finds his footing, he knows it is wrong. Out of place. One, two, ten toes out of line. He learns in quiet observations and sometimes, terrifyingly, in loud crashes of a shattered unspoken rule. He does learn, though, and adjust, because if he doesn’t people will notice and then something will break. He can't quite explain what it is, but he knows it to be irreparable. 

So he learns to pretend it’s a thing he wants. He learns to pretend that it’s not.

He learns too well and then, suddenly, things start to change and he’s scrambling to catch up, loop back, retrace his steps. It feels like he's going to need another decade and a half to adjust to it as a thing he can want without caveats. Without, “no silly goose, boys don’t marry other boys.” Without a swirling pit of confusion and guilt and fear that feels too big for his small and growing body. Without it growing with him, that sense of, _oh, this is a thing that’s not for you._ To a thing he can want at all.

When he’s 16, a state in the US legalizes gay marriage, and even though it’s a place he’s never been, a place he has to google to be able to pronounce—not that he’s saying it aloud to anyone—it still feels like a blooming in his chest, warm and almost painful. The next year while the first marriages are being performed across the Atlantic, the UK allows civil partnerships, in a decision that feels like both a win and a loss. 

Both of these victories were hard fought, still bitterly contested, and it’s a feud that feels familiar, that lives inside of him too.

It’s a slow trickle after that, of states and countries permitting his existence, as it sometimes feels. Each new place sends a little thrill through him. It still feels like something he's getting away with, something that can’t really last. A mirage, a mistake, a momentary misstep in history that will soon be corrected. He’d learned to not hope, to not think this was something he should expect, and as long as it’s taking society to loosen their death grip on the sanctity of marriage, it’s taking Phil even longer.

For every piece of good news, though, there’s at least 3 more bad ones. It’s a familiar, almost comforting sort of sting. Expected. States banning gay marriage, gay adoption, politicians condemning it, courts invalidating marriages cities performed in defiance. He carries the weight of them in his chest too.

So of course it makes sense that it would take just as long to wrap his head around the idea of accidentally meandering his way into a gay marriage, or close enough anyway. Only it doesn’t. That, by the time it pops up out of nowhere, feels just right.

* * *

If marriage had felt bewildering as an abstract concept he might have to fit himself into one hazy future day, it’s nothing to how it feels once it’s a thing he wants in a more specific sense.

It’s 2010 and he could get married in a handful of US states, a couple of far off countries, but not at home. And it’s too soon anyway. He knows that. And yet.

Dan had been the first one to broach the subject, less than a year into their relationship, because of course he was. He was always the brave one, charging recklessly forward where he by all rights shouldn’t be in the first place. Phil’s dms, Phil’s computer screen, Phil’s bedroom. Of course it would be the same with a holy sacrament that doesn’t want him, and civil liberty that refuses to count him.

They speak about it in a careful, fragile sort of language, couched in a flood of _maybes_ and _mights_ and please hear me, hear these silly, serious imganings, I’m just kidding, maybe, but also I’m not if you think so too. 

Approaching their one year anniversary, Dan tells Phil one of his old classmates is getting married. _Too young,_ they agree. _Too soon, too hasty, too foolish,_ they say with nervous giggles, flicking glances. But still a nice thought, a sweet, swooping thing.

They don’t mention that all they can do is think. At least for now.

* * *

In both their own lives and the world of gay rights, the back half of 2012 and front half of 2013 is a monumental string of months. Monumental, of course, meaning big or important, with no indication of _how_ it is. The how is a dizzying frenzy of highs and lows that seem to follow no pattern, leave no time for caught breaths. 

In the darker corners of their new lives, Dan is quiet in a way he’s never really been, loud in a way he’s never really been, mirroring the highs and lows of the rest of it except they’re both lows in their own way. Dan makes noise, lectures people snooping where they shouldn’t, draws attention away as Phil quietly reels. Phil makes noise, talks cheerfully about literally anything else, attempts a sleight of hand while Dan quietly falls apart.

Online this strange dance looks wrong-footed, at odds, and they let it because it serves the narrative. Behind closed doors they fall back into their easy rhythm, broken in similar ways, healing in synchronized steps. The world still says, with a thunderous majority, that their love is lesser, and Phil’s heart, scared and scared and trying, echoes it back.

He’s still unlearning his instinct to apologize.

But in the quiet seclusion of their new home, nearly empty and barely affordable, they’re learning it together. Dan lays still and Phil whispers promises in his ear until he falls asleep. Promises skipping forward in time, promises sliding sideways in space.

He’s got a running list of the places they could run off to to get married—New Zealand, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Canada, California—then not California, then California, then not California, until eventually he just crosses it off in sheer confusion—South Africa, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire—his personal favorite options because they all happened the year he met Dan, though, in Dan’s words, who’s even heard of Iowa, and why is the US always stealing our names and adding a ‘new’ to them?—Iceland, Argentina, California again, New York, Washington, Maryland, Maine again.

_Any of those places_, he whispers, _we could go right now. We could be married in less than 24 hours. You could be my husband._

It’s a sacred word between them, only spoken in hushed, reverent tones in dark, quiet hours. Reserved for the sweetest, saddest of times. It still feels like a thrill of electricity on their tongues, a safety taking root in their chests. He knows it shouldn’t feel like that, shouldn't be revolution in their mouths, should be an expected, inevitable promise at the end of a long, hard day, but sometimes he can’t help but feel a little grateful for the chance to experience this peculiar, particular emotion. The charged, precarious resplendence of it.

They’re not ready, not yet, not even if it were an option that didn’t require a passport and a willingness to ignore the fact that it doesn’t actually count as soon as they set foot back on UK soil. But the promise is a refuge, a resurrection, a rebellion.

* * *

They’re still climbing their way out of the riot of uncertainty and instability and turbulent growth when things shift a little closer to home.

Phil is, admittedly, a bit wrapped up in it all. Arguably too much so. Dan has lectured him on the ways the gay marriage movement has been used to distract from bigger issues, to assimilate queer people into heteronormative, capitalist society. Phil has nodded along, thought about some of it, and learned enough to put together a response if necessary. It doesn’t change the sharp tugging somewhere at the soft, young gut of him that just wants someone to tell him it’s okay to want to marry another boy. It doesn’t change the harsh tone, the firm hand still turning him away from that reckless dream. 

But then it happens, real and binding, if not terribly enthusiastic, and not 10 kilometers away from him. Gay marriage is legalized in the UK.

They’re at home, Phil in the office editing a video, ignoring a series of buzzes from his phone, Dan in the lounge flipping anxiously between tumblr and the news last he’d checked. Then Dan’s there behind him all of a sudden, shaking his shoulder, tugging on his headphones, telling him the news. They stare at each other for a stretched out moment.

For the time he spent tracking it, wishing for it, obsessing over it, Phil feels a bit empty hearing it spoken. He can see the wild smile trembling at the corners of Dan’s mouth, the wet shine to his eyes, and he leans forward to kiss him. He knows what this means to Dan, despite his loud and frequent protests that in the end marriage is just an archaic land grab, a modern capitalist ploy. And he feels the affirmation of it too. The acknowledgement. A steadying reinforcement post under the weight of the years of torment and doubt. Especially for Dan. He musters up a smile when he pulls away.

“Well, that’s it I guess,” Dan says, voice a bit flat, uncertain, as his smile lingers and his arms swing restlessly at his side.

“You’re not going to propose?” Phil had meant it as a joke, light and playful, but a pained look flashes across Dan’s face.

“I don’t think—”

“I know, Dan. Not yet, yeah? It’s fine. I was just kidding.” 

He searches for something else to say, then picks up his phone. He scrolls through a number of messages from friends and family asking if he’s heard the news, telling him it finally happened, congratulating him. Something about it rankles, a sour taste rising in the back of his throat. They’re just excited for him, trying to show him support, but they’re also expecting responses from him, expecting excitement. 

Phil can barely muster enough for himself, enough for Dan. He doesn't feel like celebrating getting something the rest of them have had all along. He’s not in the mood to perform.

“Find the nearest gay, huh?” he says with an empty laugh, holding his phone up to show Dan the string of notifications, several from people he hasn’t spoken to in months, if not years.

Dan’s expression has shut completely when he looks up at him.

“So sorry people want to celebrate with you,” he bites back, spinning on his heel.

“Wait, no, I didn’t mean—” he breaks off as his phone starts to vibrate, looking down to see a picture of his mum on the screen. Dan’s eyes are on it too.

“You should pick that up.”

“I want to talk about—”

“It’s fine. I’m fine. It’s complicated. It's—whatever. Talk to your mum. Tell her I say hi.”

He wants to say no, finish the conversation, but the phone is buzzing in his hand and he doesn’t know how to apologize to Dan, how to explain the cold creep of apathy radiating from the pit of his stomach ever since he was told he'd finally gotten what he'd been waiting for all these years. 

He picks up the phone.

“Hi mum. Yeah, we heard. Yeah,” he says into the phone, watching Dan trudge back down the stairs, “we’re excited.”

* * *

Three years pass and the world speeds along, sometimes seeming to move forward in leaps and bounds of heady progress, sometimes reminding them with a sickening punch to the gut how far there’s still to go. Their lives have sped along too, with growing subscriber counts, book deals, a world tour propelling them forwards at a dizzying pace. They still feel stood still sometimes, though. 

Phil knows they don’t need rings or a piece of paper to affirm their relationship, knows what’s holding them back and the irrefutable need of it to take its own time, however long that is. Their viewers have stopped asking, for the most part, if they believe in gay marriage—a slow loosening of the jaw every time that question isn't asked in a live show—if they support gay rights, if they're gay. It's a steady sort of mutual acknowledgement they've settled into, for the most part. And it feels a bit scary still sometimes, and a bit restrictive sometimes, but mostly just good. Sometimes he still dreams, though, like he did back in the early days. Only now it’s mostly kept wrapped up tight in his own head.

He’s out to lunch with Martyn one day when the world shifts on its axis again, a new possibility opened up to him that he’d never considered. Martyn’s complaining about their mum pestering him about when he’s going to settle down, get married, have kids.

“Yeah, but she asks you. She doesn’t ask me.” It's not quite true, but true enough to smart. She's asked him once or twice, she asks Martyn once or twice a month. He can't help but wonder why. He can't help but think he knows.

“You’re younger,” Martin says with a wave, completely missing the point, the sting of it. “Besides, you and Dan are practically married already. You spend, like, every second together. You can’t be more than a year off of common law.

He’s grown used to accepting scraps, expecting not quites and just to the left ofs, so it snaps neatly into his still mending conception of marriage.

* * *

Phil doesn’t say anything on the seventh anniversary of them living together, because it’s silly and it doesn’t matter and he doesn’t want to put any more pressure on Dan. He does that so well on his own already. But if he makes a nice dinner and sets the table with their actual wine glasses and the two non-scented candles he finally digs out of the depths of their junk drawer and puts on the shirt Dan complimented the other week, well—it’s nice to look nice for your common law husband.

It’s a marriage that didn’t name itself that. A marriage of coincidence, of geographic proximity, of technicalities and legalize. Half of it doesn’t even know that it exists, as far as Phil can tell. But it’s also a marriage of commitment, communication, hard fought and deliberately learned lessons. It’s a promise, made years ago in fear and desperation and love, clung to fiercely, defended above all else. It’s a defiance, against everyone that told them it wouldn’t last, tried to pry it from their hands and claim it for themselves, tried to tell them it was a sin.

They may have walked into it accidentally, but it’s a marriage Phil wouldn’t give up for the world.

* * *

“Jenny got married last weekend.”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

“It was a lovely wedding.”

“That’s nice.” He winces at his repetition, scrambling for something else to say while his brain shudders to a start and catches up with the direction of this conversation. They so rarely talk about this. “Is she still with Oliver? Is that who she got married to?”

“No dear, they broke up ages ago. She married a nice lad from Huddersfield.”

The conversation settles down between them and Phil stays as still as possible, trying not to spook it.

“I remember when you told me you wanted to marry Oliver. I think he’s seeing a girl down in York, so that’s probably out now.”

“Yeah, mum,” Phil responds, hoping the tremor in his voice isn’t too noticeable. He’s so glad to see her, after the whirlwind of the tour, has been looking forward to the chance to catch up for months, so he swallows down the sour taste rising up his throat.

“And of course you have Dan.

“Yeah, of course.” Phil fiddles absentmindedly with his napkin, ripping it into little strips, wrapping them around his finger, ignores her impatient sigh.

“Should I give up on the two of you getting married?”

It’s hard to describe the precise way in which it hurts, and he’s not sure he’ll ever find a common language to translate it into that will make her understand. Dan knows, of course. He’s lived it too, felt the sharp sting and shifting ground of those throwaway comments, those reminders that you are different, other, in your own home. 

Well, not his home anymore. Or his only home. Of course he always loves going to visit his parents and spend time with his family, but the core of his home now, the one he can’t go without, walks around on two legs, or, perhaps more accurately if you’re measuring by average time spent, sits crouched in the crease of a grey sofa.

“I mean… it’s a little complicated, isn’t it? With Dan’s family. And all the scrutiny. It’d be a risk.” I don’t want to take my ring off every time we film or go outside, he doesn’t say. I don’t want Dan’s family to not be there, and I don’t want Dan to feel pressured to come out because of this thing we don’t even really need. This thing we never expected to have. Not getting it yet still feels like a hopeful, lucky thing. It’s a yet on their own terms. Mostly. A yet, at least, not dictated by law.

“Of course.” Her voice is soaked in disappointment, dusted with doubt.

Phil could tell her about disappointment. He could tell her what it felt like at age six to be chastised for playing the same game his friends were playing, only playing it wrong. What it feels like to be chastised 25 years later for still playing it wrong, somehow.

And he could tell her about doubt, so much about doubt. About how he still catches himself thinking, every now and again, that maybe marriage isn’t for him.

He could, channeling his most palatable gay optimism, tell her about hope and certainty. About whispered promises nearly 10 years old, the growing mass of tally marks, countries colored in on a darkening map, not updated for years now as they’d lost track with the swell of it. Lost the need to count places they could with the slow but steady dwindling of places they can’t. About how it became a more cherished thing, a more certain thing for its lack of uncertainty, its tarnished past. 

What he winds up saying, for whatever reason, is, “We are kind of married, though. Common law, I mean.”

“Oh, that’s a myth,” his mum says lightly, taking another bite of her cake, unaware of the spidering crack she has tapped into the surface of his life.

“What?”

“I just read a BBC article about this, actually. Yes. It’s not true that if you’ve lived together for 7 years, or 10 years I think some people say, that you’re married under common law. And it’s more about financial rights upon the dissolution of a relationship anyway.”

“Oh. Right.” It doesn't matter because it wasn't real, but he's clung to unreal things all his life, things he was told weren't real despite the ringing truth of them, and it feels like a loss all the same.

“Marriage is a lovely thing, child. I know the two of you love each other very much, and we’re so happy for you and all that you’ve accomplished, but we can’t help but hope that you’ll slow down a bit sometime soon. Think about your family.”

In the noise of his thoughts, what rises to the surface is that he’s glad that Dan’s not here, that he won’t have to hear a rant on the ride home about marriage not being necessary to start a family, or kids for that matter, which is what he knows his mother means. About the years they still have ahead of them, the love stretched out in both directions.

Phil agrees with him, he does, but his mum’s words pull at something deeper, something older, and he knows he wants that too. Luckily, he’s used to not getting what he wants. He used to waiting. 

“I know mum. And we do want that. Just… Not yet.”

* * *

About half an hour after it goes live, Phil’s parents call him to congratulate them both on the video, the milestone, the bravery. Dan and Phil hold hands as they listen on speakerphone, squeezing quick pulses of support whenever it feels a bit overwhelming. They mean well and it does soothe a small, persistent part of him still wanting validation, but all he really wants to do right now is curl up with Dan on the sofa in his pjs and watch something stupid.

Dan wanders off at some point, but his parents keep talking, and Phil is still working out a way to end the conversation when his mum brings it up again.

“So,” his she starts, voice soft and pressing, “does this mean that wedding bells are finally in our future.”

“Darling,” his dad laughs, sounding amused, exasperated, but not correcting her, not overturning. The question remains.

Phil looks over to Dan, laughing quietly at something on his phone. Shoulders light and high, brow uncreased. The man he knows he'll spend the rest of his life with, with or without rings on their fingers or a ceremony to publicize it. The man who has waited for him, who he has waited for, who he has waited with.

“Not quite yet, mum.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! You can reblog it [here](https://phanomeheart.tumblr.com/post/188634646572/turn-a-little-faster-and-the-world-will-follow) if you like.


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